I had to read the name of the newspaper that published this article twice: yes it is the New York Times and it has a positive article up about Iraq. It seems that the violence in the Sunni province of Anbar (many Baathists there) has decreased dramatically since the start of the surge. Sunnis are now working with the US to push Al Qaeda out of Anbar province.
Anbar Province, long the lawless heartland of the tenacious Sunni Arab resistance, is undergoing a surprising transformation. Violence is ebbing in many areas, shops and schools are reopening, police forces are growing and the insurgency appears to be in retreat.
“Many people are challenging the insurgents,†said the governor of Anbar, Maamoon S. Rahid, though he quickly added, “We know we haven’t eliminated the threat 100 percent.â€
Many Sunni tribal leaders, once openly hostile to the American presence, have formed a united front with American and Iraqi government forces against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. With the tribal leaders’ encouragement, thousands of local residents have joined the police force. About 10,000 police officers are now in Anbar, up from several thousand a year ago. During the same period, the police force here in Ramadi, the provincial capital, has grown from fewer than 200 to about 4,500, American military officials say.
Good, no great, news, but as the NYT’s Kirk Semple makes clear, it is way too early to declare victory in Anbar. The situation is still “uneasy and fragile:†today’s alliances can be broken tomorrow, “municipal services remain a wreck; local governments, while reviving, are still barely functioning; and years of fighting have damaged much of Ramadi.â€
That being said, the development is highly positive and promising.
Ed Morrissey adds:
Life has not yet returned to normal, nor even close to it. Infrastructure still has yet to be rebuilt, and the loyalty of America’s new allies still remains uncertain. What does appear certain is that this former stronghold of Ba’athist resentment no longer wants to exist in a cycle of oppression, liberation, and destruction. They want to end the fighting by eliminating the insurgents.
The question will be whether they stick with that in the face of an imminent American withdrawal. It has taken four years for Anbar to understand that Sunni domination in Iraq has ended and will not return, neither in the guise of Saddam Hussein nor in a military junta ruled by Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, the chief Ba’athist dead-ender. Now that they have finally pulled together with the US to oppose the increasingly lunatic al-Qaeda terrorists, we have lost the will to fight the insurgents ourselves — or at least Congress has.
Cross posted at my own blog.
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